


"R" is For...

by RileyC



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Doyle
Genre: Gen, Post-Hiatus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet another visit to post-hiatus time, with things needing to be ironed out between the gentlemen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"R" is For...

"Oh, Doctor, bless you for coming!" Mrs. Hudson cried stepping forward to meet me even as I paid the driver of the hansom that had brought me from Kensington at Mrs. Hudson's urgent summons.

Quickly taking stock of her agitated state, and further, hearing the report of a pistol shot from the rooms that had once been my home, I thought it was no great effort to identify the source of her alarm. "Mrs. Hudson," I said as we went inside, "how long has this been going on?"

"Not long after breakfast, Doctor," the good lady told me, relieving me of coat and hat. "He's been in a state since Friday, though. Snapped at the girl for messing about with his chemicals, as if she would. Instructed me he would see to his own housekeeping, as if I hadn't kept his rooms neat as a pin these past three years," she said, a slight tremor in her voice betraying the hurt she'd felt at such a rebuke.

A pang of remorse struck me at her words. Since Holmes's return, I had been preoccupied with my own conflicted feelings - joy that Holmes was alive, and yet stung by his lack of trust in me - I had not stopped to consider that others besides myself might experience a similar pain. Mrs. Hudson certainly did not warrant brusque treatment from him, especially as I knew full well his displeasure lay with me.

Assuring Mrs. Hudson all would be well, I mounted the stairs to my old rooms, nostrils assaulted by the too-familiar reek of black powder. It was a fragrance that was disagreeable enough on the battlefield. Here, indoors, it was really quite intolerable. That Holmes would be as oblivious to that, as to the fetid atmosphere created by his sometimes profligate consumption of tobacco, I did not doubt for a moment, of course. For a man who depended upon his extraordinary powers of observation and deduction for his bread and butter, my friend was sometimes maddeningly unmindful of the consequence of his actions upon others.

Which circumstance lay at the heart of the stalemate between us, and accounted for his current foul mood. Perhaps I should have predicted something of this sort, following our evening - this past Friday - at Marcini's, but then I was not the only one whose foresight might lack a certain astuteness.

"Holmes," I stepped into the sitting room at the precise moment he loosed another volley, the bullet impacting and adding a further detail to what I perceived was an elaborate **R**. "Holmes," I repeated, shutting the door behind me, "you've left off the **V**."

Seated on the sofa, disheveled in his mouse grey dressing gown, his lean shoulders lifted in a minute shrug. "It is not my intent to honor Her Majesty," he said, tracking my motions as I crossed the room to open the windows, letting fresher air pour into the room to disperse the rank atmosphere.

"What then?"

Feigning indifference, he said, "An abstract of the mind. Mrs. Hudson sent for you?"

"However did you deduce that?" I said, making no effort to disguise the sarcasm of my tone.

Sherlock Holmes cast a look at me, as loaded as the pistol still clutched loosely in his hands. "You have performed your good deed, Doctor. Do congratulate yourself and return to your very important life."

There was a time I would have heard only the spoken words, and not what lay underneath them, and allowed myself to be provoked. Now, however, I only said, mildly chastising, "Really, Holmes, sulking hardly becomes you," and took my seat opposite him.

Baleful - guarded - grey eyes regarded me across the short distant. "Nor is your pawkish sense of humor as becoming as you might imagine, Watson."

I also chose to let that unworthy comment go unremarked, and instead, studying that eccentric **R** that now adorned these chambers, asked, "Reichenbach?"

He shook his head. "Only indirectly."

Thinking back to the very first case we had shared, where a luridly scrawled word - _rache_ \- had helped my friend untangle a scarlet skein, I ventured, "Revenge?"

"Hardly. Really, Watson, I'm sure you have vastly better things to do than play at guessing games," he said, a querulous note in his voice that was meant to put me off.

"Not especially," I said, settling myself more comfortably. "It is a Sunday, after all."

"Then go for a picnic in the park."

"I haven't picnicked in a very long time, Holmes." The very last time had been with Mary, indulging her wish to experience one last springtime afternoon. "Do you know how I have spent my Sundays of late?"

"No doubt you're about to tell me."

"I think I am." Sitting up straighter, leaning toward him, I said, "For many Sundays past, it has been my habit to take a bouquet of violets to leave at Mary's grave - and then to visit your resting place and pay my respects, even though I knew your body lay, battered and lost, somewhere in the depths of that terrible place."

"Watson--"

"It was a comfort, after a fashion. A way to make peace with what had happened, and still maintain a sense of connection with you, however symbolic." I had told that simple, plain stone marker, embedded in the ground, things I had never dared say aloud to the living man. Grieving anew the failed courage that had kept me silent, and all the things that could never be. "Did you attend your own funeral, Holmes? Were you there amongst the mourners, observing our reactions?"

He blanched at that, truly shocked I would raise such an abominable possibility. "Watson, of course not. How could you think such a thing?"

"Why should I not, when you have already confessed to cold-blooded deception?"

He glanced away from me, at that **R**, voice so low I could scarcely hear him. "There was nothing cold-blooded about it."

"No? What would you call it, then, this … disregard for everything between us?" Anger, and hurt, fueled me now, and however unwise it might be to indulge that, I could not restrain myself any longer. "What possible cause did I ever give you to believe I was any less trustworthy than your brother? What confidence did I ever betray? You may think me dim-witted--"

"I have never thought that, Watson," he said, fire in his own tone now.

"--but I have always operated to the best of my ability," I continued, "to carry out your wishes, your instructions, with no intent except to honor you. I would lay down my own life," my voice grew rough now, "before ever I would endanger yours in any manner."

Gaze fixed at some point just past my head, a muscle in his jaw working, Holmes said, "Do you not think I know that. Watson?"

"Then how could you do that? How could you blithely go about your life and leave me to believe--"

"There was nothing blithe about it! Damn you, do you truly think I acted with a light heart?" he demanded, springing to his feet, restlessly pacing the room.

"I think you did as you pleased, as you always do, and Devil take me and anyone else with a regard for you!" I would have called the words back, had I the power, seeing how they struck him with an almost physical force. "Holmes…"

"It's remorse," he said quietly, standing before the windows, looking out at Baker Street.

I blinked, falling a step behind his train of thought. "What is?"

"The **R** \- it's for Remorse."

I looked at it, so stark and ragged on the wall - back to him, just as bleak, just as raw, understanding coming slowly. "I see." Standing, I picked up the pistol he had discarded, cocked and aimed it at the wall--

"Watson! What on earth are you doing?"

"I believe there should be a **P** beside it, for Penitence."

He laid a hand on my wrist, stopping me. "No, Watson. No - you have no cause to apologize, to repent of anything."

"I should not have spoken so harshly."

"Your anger is fully justified."

"Perhaps --but it could have been better expressed."

Searching my eyes, he asked, "Will you ever forgive me?"

For the first time since crossing the threshold of this room, I felt a smile start to form, albeit tinged with irony. "I very much expect I shall."

"Soon?"

I did smile now, refraining, with effort, from rolling my eyes. "Very likely." His own powers of rationalization were hardly required to arrive at that conclusion.

Nor would it be cause for astonishment if I one day found myself calling 221B my home once more. That had been the source of our disagreement on Friday, but it was not the idea itself to which I had objected, but Holmes's cavalier manner; his assumption that I would automatically fall in line with his plans.

What had given the appearance of impasse on Friday evening, however, acquired a somewhat different aspect now, and I was not reluctant to tell him so. "Holmes, many things in this world may change, but one constant you may always rely upon is that I shall always be gladly at your side."

Caught unaware by my declaration, he looked quickly away, though not so fast I did not glimpse a flash of emotion in his face. With a great show of idly fidgeting with the pipes arrayed on the mantle, he said, with practiced nonchalance, "One day I must remember to thank Stamford for introducing us."

"As should I, Holmes," I said, and when he looked at me this time, there was no effort to deny the warmth in his eyes.

Nodding my acknowledgement of it, feeling certain we would weather this storm, I asked, "Have you any case before you?"

An indifferent shrug, and a wave of a hand to a telegram that lay crumpled among the breakfast dishes. "See for yourself."

Picking it up and smoothing it out, I read that Holmes had been contacted by the owners of a Dutch steamship called the _Friesland_, soliciting his help in the matter of its disappearance. "I don't recall reading of such a ship sinking."

"Nor have I."

"Will you accept?"

"I doubt there's anything in it," he said diffidently, shooting me a glance. "Were I to take up the matter, however…"

"I should be honored to be of any assistance."

Holmes replied with a brisk nod. "Will you join me for a late luncheon, Watson?"

I accepted gladly -- for the invitation, and the chance to once more take my place at his side, a spot I would not willingly relinquish ever again.

_~end~_


End file.
